VICTORIA — A Nanaimo woman whose mountain bike was stolen during a trip to Kelowna last year has been reunited with her wheels — with help from a smartphone app.

Kathy Gonzales was contacted by police after listing her bike on 529 Garage, a website and phone app that allows cyclists to register details and photos of their bikes. If a registered bike is stolen, an alert is sent out to fellow 529 Garage users. Police can also use the searchable database to locate stolen bikes.

Gonzales had her high-end bike stolen from the bike rack on her car in September, and efforts to recover it were unsuccessful.

Her stolen bike was brought into a Vancouver bike shop for resale late last month, and following a search of the 529 Garage database, the store owner saw that an exact match — which turned out to be Gonzales’s bike — was listed as stolen.

Vancouver cops were called and seized the bike, and returned it to Gonzales earlier this month.

“I’m thrilled to get my bike back,” she said in a Nanaimo RCMP release. “The process was so easy and the more people use it, the better it will be.”

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